I am writing today to ask for your vote on November 4th in my campaign for the US Senate. I am running as a progressive, Green Party candidate because I believe that the time has come to end the war in Iraq, ensure that all Americans have access to affordable, quality health care and to restore common sense and decency to our national dialogue.
Health care is a pressing need here in Tennessee where the Democratic Governor has removed over 300,000 people from the health care rolls. For far too long we have neglected the needs of the poor in America, allowing hundreds of thousands in Tennessee to go without healthcare and millions nationally. That is why I support universal single payer health care.
Education if a priority for all Americans. As a candidate I support increased funding for our state's public schools, universities and community colleges. With only twenty five percent of Tennesseans graduating from college and less than sixty percent graduating from high school, isn't it time for us to make education a real focus? I support full investment in education from PreK to PhD.
We must take solid steps to ensure that all Americans have safe and affordable housing, that we live in a clear and healthy environment, and that we take steps to address the deep divisions of inequity that still persist in our society. I did not support the bailout of corporate America and would have voted against more money for Wall Street. I believe that we must begin to invest in poor and working class people by supporting an increased minimum wage, a moratorium on housing foreclosures and a rollback of the Bush tax cuts.
I believe in the American dream and I believe that all Americans deserve the opportunity to have a rich and meaningful life, but the only way to ensure that these priorities are addressed is to make certain that our government makes this a priority, that our elected representatives make peace and social justice a priority on a national scale.
I am ashamed of the international reputation that the United States has developed as a purveyor of torture, as a rogue superpower which exercises its military power at will, in the face of widespread international protest. I believe that the American people are not really the way the rest of the world sees us. I believe that we are really a decent, caring, compassionate people. As a candidate I will work to sunset the patriot act, reverse the military commissions act, close Guantanamo Bay and bring the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq.
I want to live in an America where everyone can afford to go to school and earn a college degree, where we are not under the constant fear generated by our own nuclear umbrella, where everyone is paid at minimum a living wage that can feed and house a basic family unit, where our power is generated by clean energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal power. As a candidate I support programs to make these ideas a reality.
I want to live in an America where poor people do not spend years locked up in a criminal penitentiary unit because they have lost hope and do not believe there are alternatives to the path of incarceration. I want to live in an America where every person counts, where no one is forgotten, where our government does not listen in on our private conversations, where people believe that their vote counted and where the environment is a sacred trust that we leave in tact for future generations.
We are at a crossroads in history, and we face a choice in the South which all Americans face. Do we choose to continue down the path of abandonment, of hopelessness and fear or do we choose to embrace the compassionate, hopeful elements of our national identity? I for one, choose to hope. I believe that the government is here to serve the people and our elected leaders are here to serve you. That is why I am asking for your vote on Tuesday, November 4th in Tennessee.
Please consider voting Green on November 4th and thanks for your support.
Chris Lugo for US Senate
9 Music Sq So #164
Nashville, TN 37203
615-593-0304
chris4senate@gmail.com
www.voteforpeace.info
